Michael Gerson: Crisis management good test for Christie

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie works through the jam of state representatives greeting him as he arrives to deliver his State Of The State address at the Statehouse in Trenton, N.J. Christie, eager to get on with business amid a scandal over traffic jams that appear to have manufactured by aides, met Thursday with homeowners affected by Superstorm Sandy even as the Legislature prepares to issue new subpoenas as part of its investigation into the traffic backups.

There is something inherently absurd about a political scandal resulting from an event that could also have been caused by a stray deer and a truck filled with watermelons. Instead, the closing of two access lanes to the George Washington Bridge last fall was the result of stupidity and swagger in close proximity to one of the GOP’s most promising presidential prospects.

Judged purely as a matter of politics, New Jersey Gov. Christie has done well. Assuming his vehement denial of all involvement is accurate — the alternative is the end of his credibility and his career — Christie’s news conference was a model of crisis management. He accepted responsibility without admitting culpability. He apologized while maintaining he was a victim. I can’t recall a political figure who has done the scandal drill — mistakes were made, heads will roll — any better.

In the pre-primary primary, this is actually a qualification. Presidential candidates have been known to face draft-record controversies, bimbo eruptions, early DUI revelations, drug-use allegations, questions about discreditable pastoral associations and the like. The successful ones share Christie’s talent for crisis containment.

And the timing of this particular scandal is strangely good for Christie. A decisive re-election is just behind him. The primary season is years ahead. Political memories are short.

So — assuming the traffic cone caper was an isolated, rogue operation — that is that. But not quite.

It is a fair assumption that a politician’s closest advisers become the core of a presidential campaign and may eventually hold key positions in government. The character of a presidential campaign, or of a White House staff, is actually determined by the dynamics of a small group. Often five or six people set the tone — amplifying a leader’s virtues or his or her less desirable traits.

In this case, some of the closest advisers to the New Jersey governor have been implicated in an act of nearly irrational vindictiveness and what Christie calls “abject stupidity.” It was the abuse of power to punish random people on a roadway who would (if the scheme worked properly) never know the reason. This was the reduction of citizens to ants on a log. It is the political philosophy of a malicious child with a magnifying glass.

It is difficult to imagine such political operatives would have been capable enough to carry Christie to the presidency. But such a thought experiment is sobering. The problem is that stupidity is scalable. Transposed to the White House, such attitudes and tactics might have been Nixonian. Some in Christie’s circle of trust were not worthy of trust.

This is the reason the bridge scandal is more than a test of crisis management; it is now a test of whether Christie can build a political team worthy of his presidential ambitions (assuming he has them). Loyalty is an important virtue in a politician’s closest staff. But it is not sufficient. The bridge lane closings and cover-up did not result from staffers with insufficient loyalty to Christie but from staffers with insufficient regard for the public interest. This is where a deficit of trust now exists.

Christie remains a Republican front-runner for good reasons. He is tough, candid, pragmatic, persistent and unafraid of vested political interests. He has shown a rare ability to explain the need for pension and benefit reform in the Garden State — a skill transferrable to national fiscal challenges. His decisive re-election was earned — and promising as the basis for a national Republican coalition that includes more of the political center.

But many Republicans are watching Christie’s first reaction to serious adversity. Does it make team Christie more combative and insular? Or is it taken as a painful but helpful lesson — producing a presidential campaign in which crackpot schemes of political vengeance are unthinkable?

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I'd be interested to know how watermelons or a deer could cause a city-crippling traffic jam for more than a couple of hours, much less days, or why a governor's staff would stonewall the director of the port authority over either of those things.

It also strains credulity to believe Christie did not know what was going on when he spent the days that the lanes were closed with the two people who directly ordered them.

It boils down to this: If Christie did not personally order or have knowledge of what was going on in his own office or that of his childhood friend he got a cushy job for, he's incompetent and should resign. Otherwise he's a criminal and he should go to jail.

But, remember, it's okay if you're a Republican. And if you try to dispute that fact first consider the consequences faced by Elliot Spitzer and David Vitter after they got caught with hookers.

Or a Democratic President getting pleasured by a White House intern and then lying about it. That's right, he didn't lose his job either.

Or our current president who claimed ignorance of what was happening in HHS with HIS signature legislation and that he knowingly made false promises to get it passed. 5 million have lost their insurance - so far. Traffic jams are small potatoes in comparison.

What Christie did was endanger lives....white house intern...who did it hurt????? the cost to business what he did...how many billions...the lost of life because of traffic jambs????? You small minded religious idiots crack me up!!!!!

There is an ongoing investigation by the legislature in NJ and until that is complete, no one will know the specifics of what occurred. There will be those who will predictably, of course, pounce on this and draw all sorts of drama from it and speculate their theories and jump to the conclusion they want. At the end of the day, we should deal with the what we do know. Christie took action, he states, when all of this was brought to his attention and he swiftly fired the culprits within his own administration.

Libs are desperate and famished like starved lions for some Republicans to chew apart in the midst of months of Obamaland failures, scandals and the almighty debacle of the ACA. Of course they will be feeding on this one until there are no bones left. If it is determined Christie was a part of this ridiculous and petty act of revenge, then he will have to pay his consequence; if not, then he can run for President.

It's really no huge scandal at all, especially when in looming presence of the IRS scandal, the Benghazi scandal, the NSA scandal, the lies Obama told the nation about ACA , the failed roll out of the ACA and the continuance of ACA nightmares with the knowledge there will be more to come.

The difference will be, if Christie has lied and played a part in the traffic jam caper then Republicans will be the first to call him out and hold him responsible.

American Heritage Dictionary definition of fascism: "...a system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."

Gerson and Christie are RINOs. Even with the possibility that Christie can maneuver around the scandal, I'll bet Republican strategists are sniffing around other fire hydrants.

But 2016 is a long way away and Americans tend to have short-term memory loss. We also still have an economic crisis that, despite spin from various camps, is getting worse. Anywhere you look to see employment numbers rising, the bulk of the jobs turns out to be low-wage. You aren't going to get economic recovery or revenues out of that.

Meanwhile, the stock market is still very bullish. This is a snapshot of increasing income inequality. Two worlds with an ever-deeper chasm between them and we might as well give the American Dream its last rites. Goodby middle class, hello feudalism.

America has staying power because we are the default, fiat currency of the world. Or, as Dick Cheney once put it, "Deficits don't matter" as he charged up war debt on the taxpayer's credit card. Then they called for more austerity, which is middle class and economic suicide. That is apparently the real GOP "plan."

Republicans have been trying to dismantle democratic processes they ideologically despise -- and that's their only real game plan. Plus the people whose food stamps and unemployment benefits they are deconstructing could show up at the polls in anger over what the GOP has done. And they know that, which is why they are mounting voter suppression, unlimited dark money in elections, means to trash Democrat ballots, and any redistricting they can rig. Machiavelli would be proud of his offspring.

Their plan to end the recession is basically to throw money at all their campaign contributors until the problem goes away.

It's time to face it the vast majority of politicians on both sides of the isle stopped caring about the average person & the middle class decades ago.

There may be a handful of politicians left who do care but they are pretty much unheard of because they are not in the media spotlight due to the fact they refuse to sell our their ideals & play the "game" that modern politics has become.

Sadly unless more people wake up to this fact America will just continue to circle the drain because all the "leaders" will continue to sell the rest of us out for their own carriers.

Creating your own senseless calamity just to test your crisis management style is as pointless as the calamity itself.
Christie only wishes it was watermelon.
Maybe Sarah Palin will come forward and say she shot a deer on the highway and caused the whole fatuous event.

For anything to cling to and just pray it has legs. Haha like kalaks said, a nothing story being beaten to death by the liberal media. The only people even talking about it, Americans couldn't care less. We have a president wrapped up in scandals ranging from spying on American citizens, arms deals with drug cartels, to murdered American citizens and government employees covered up and lied about during an election year. These stories only having legs because of the insistence of good Americans seeking truth despite the efforts of the liberal media. Like it's been said if the moderately Republican Christie is involved then he will be done in the public arena. Do radio with Spitzer I guess. The desperation among the liberals is hilarious.